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“We have seen a large number of positive cases in Punta Arenas (…). And we, as a health team, are committed to giving all the necessary help so that no patient is left without a ventilator ”, said Minister Enrique Paris during his visit to the Magallanes Region, along with the portfolio undersecretaries, who toured the hospitals in the area, regarding an increase in hospitalizations due to Covid-19.
However, the situation is already looming critical and with numbers similar to those of the first outbreak in that area and other cities in the extreme south. As reported by the Chilean Society of Intensive Medicine (Sochimi), this Monday in the Magallanes Region 100% occupancy of critical units was reached.
A number that was contested by the Clinical Hospital of that city -one of the three health facilities in the area-, where they detailed that they expanded their quotas to 24. Anyway, until yesterday in the updated report of the Sochimi the situation was not better : 97% occupancy was registered in Magallanes and 88% in the Biobío Region, followed by Coquimbo, in the north, with 87%.
The increase in the requirements for ICU beds that may involve the new cases reported in recent days – this Tuesday 113 in Magallanes and another 155 in Biobío, according to official figures from the Minsal – worry the authorities Central, which are already thinking about how to decongest the network with the transfer of patients.
The Undersecretary of Assistance Networks, Arturo Zúñiga, details that these operations have already begun and that from Friday until yesterday there had been four emergency air evacuations of Covid-19 patients from Magallanes to the capital. “We have already transferred four patients since last Friday and from the Biobío Region we have also moved patients to Santiago, as well as between hospitals in Greater Concepción,” he explains.
In the case of Biobío, according to Dr. Patricia Méndez, director of the Central Metropolitan Health Service (who, being in charge of Samu, are part of the coordination of aerial rescues of Covid-19 patients, together with the Fach), in In the last month, seven patients have been received from the Las Higueras Hospital in Talcahuano, at a rate that has intensified in recent weeks.
Given the increase in cases forecast by Health in the coming weeks, Zúñiga details that “the transfer of patients is constantly being planned in a preventive wayin the face of a possible higher demand for ICU beds when there is a significant increase in infections ”.
However, as not all patients can be transferred, due to the severity of the condition and other comorbidities, Méndez explains that the Health Service sent a clinical delegation to Magallanes, led by the head of the UPC of the Central Post, Rodolfo Santander, to help the staff who work there.
From the Central Post Office, where they have received the bulk of the transfers from the regions to Santiago, its director, Osvaldo Carrasco, points out that they are ready, as they still have 130 beds enabled to absorb the demand. “The instruction of the ministry is that we are the only hospital that is not going to become uncomplex after the first outbreak,” he concludes.
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